1. Field of the Invention
Our invention relates to paper products such as absorbent hand towels. Our invention also relates to processes of manufacturing paper products such as absorbent hand towels.
2. Related Art
It is desirable for many types of paper products to have diverse properties. For example, absorbent paper products must be able to mop up large amounts of liquid before becoming saturated. As another example, customers greatly prefer that absorbent paper products feel soft to the touch. Absorbency and softness, however, are contradictory properties when it comes to manufacturing paper products. Most techniques for increasing the absorbency of paper products will also have the effect of decreasing the perceived softness of the products. Conversely, most techniques for increasing the softness of paper products will have the effect of decreasing the absorbency of the products. For example, calendering basesheets that make up the paper products can increase the softness of the products. Calendering, however, also has the effect of reducing the caliper of the basesheets. And, as absorbency of paper products is generally proportional to the caliper of the products, calendering the basesheets will also have the effect of reducing the absorbency of the products. The use of wet and dry strength resins are examples of other techniques that improve the properties of paper products. Such resins are added to the furnish used in a papermaking process, and the resins have the effect of improving the underlying strength of the resulting paper products, e.g., the cross machine direction (CD) or machine direction (MD) wet tensile strength of the products. Wet and dry strength resins, however, also have the undesirable effect of reducing the perceived softness of the resulting products.
Another challenge in manufacturing paper products is that paper making is a relatively low margin industry, and, thus, there is a constant need to find more economically efficient products and processing. In terms of products, the basis weight or bulk of paper products are properties that are often studied in an attempt to devise more economical products. There is a constant search for paper products that have a lower basis weight or higher bulk, but still have comparable properties in all other aspects.